


if you could speak (pray) to bones

by mighty-worm (wyrm_n_sigun)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Afghanistan, Agnostic Character, Atheism, Character Study, Gen, Minor Violence, Religion, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, my atheist is showing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-21
Updated: 2012-05-21
Packaged: 2017-11-11 10:41:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyrm_n_sigun/pseuds/mighty-worm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In a world made up of absences and questions without answers and dry waste under star skies, Sherlock's the only thing that really seems to matter. He brings everything to life. Things are <i>big</i> when you run with Sherlock, the world's at stake when you walk at his side. Everything matters: details, blood stains, small moments of humanity, lies and fights, ashes. Death. Life."</p><p> </p><p>On belief.<br/> </p>
            </blockquote>





	if you could speak (pray) to bones

 

The Watsons were always the sort of family who worked hard to seem the most pleasant, ordinary, bland sort of people. (They worked hard, because seeming innocuous took effort: disguising the family's strain of alcoholism, yelling because striking each other would make people talk, and pretending that the twins, John and Harriet, got along.) Even despite the family's dysfunctionalities, they were perfectly petty, boring, and normal. They were the kinds of people who made sure the children did well in school, always went to awkward family get-togethers with crumbling old aunts and rusted uncles, went to office parties, birthdays, weddings and funerals, and church every Christmas and Easter Sunday.

 

Once, when John and Harry were little, John fussed with the pressed clothes he was being made to wear for the Christmas service. "Why d'we have to go church, anyway? It's Christmas!" he asked.

 

"Because it's what you do," his mother told him, frowning as she turned to help Harry button up her dress with careful fingers; Mum always did like Harry best. As did Dad. And everyone else. Something about being gregarious, whatever that meant.

 

For once, John was the one squirming during the service; Mum snapped at him, and patted Harry on the cheek for her good behaviour. She preened.

 

Harry watched as their father took most of the food and alcohol from the small reception table afterwards; John watched as their mother spent an hour and a half engaged in idle gossip.

 

As you do, he supposed.

 

______________________________________________________________________________

 

It wasn't until he was asked that he started to think about what religious sect he belonged to. He supposed he was probably Anglican, since the alternative was Catholic and he was pretty sure he wasn't that. He'd always just thought of himself as Christian, because his mother said so. He was Christian because he went to church on Christmas and Easter, and that was it.

 

It wasn't until they talked about the Reformation and creation of The Church of England at school that he really understood what the differences in belief between the sects were; previously, he'd thought it mainly had to do with having lots of babies and getting divorced.

 

It wasn't until he tried to sustain an ill-advised theological debate with his second girlfriend, who was planning on going into the study when she finished sixth form, that he realised that some people really did  _believe_  in things: in magic, in omnipotence, in fate, in miracles. In  _big things_. In invisible things.  
   
How nice it must be, he thought, to live in a world that had meaning. Could he live like that?

He'd always wondered when his actions would mean something, when he'd ever get to make a difference, when he'd do something that wasn't work/study/sleep/try to get into university. When he'd affect  _big things_. When he'd start to matter.  
   
Maybe this was that moment.  
   
______________________________________________________________________________  
   
   
By the time he was enlisted, he'd successfully fostered ludicrous notions about God and life and death, wandered into churches more times in his few years in medical school than he ever had in the years previous, and went to fight for things that were  _right_  with hapless, hopeful, shining eyes.  
   
By the time he was deployed, he'd convinced himself he believed in everything. Queen and country, all of that.  
   
By his fifth month on the ground, he had just one word to say for it:  _bollocks._  
   
He wandered for the rest of his tour and for the ones after that, living excitement and adrenalin and it was wonderful and it made him sick. It was where he belonged, he thought, in this shithole: the dusty land of waste, of slaughtered children and dreams. This nether-realm where every moment glowed with significance, because it could be one of the last. The land of shadows, where he convinced himself he was alive by almost ensuring he wasn't.   
   
Then one day he saw spindly Masters off to heaven and John was so  _tired,_  felt so useless in the face of the boy's pious supplications, and didn't know what to think. For one long, lost moment, as he stood outside and watched the night sky, he allowed himself to forget about battles and good guys and bad guys and only thought about the  _whys._  
   
It occurred to him, star-lit and cold, that he was here because he was crazy, and cold, and alone, and wanted some slim victory, shadow of a delusion that his presence under the star sky meant something.  
   
Worthless, when he thought about it, compared to everyone, in the tents behind him and out there in hideaways and the villages and mountains, who was there for a reason, to protect something or fight for something or live for something. Something they  _believed_  in, even if it wasn't worth the effort or the cost or the condemnation. The realisation tasted bitter on his tongue; he didn't want to be one of the drifters, had never wanted it.   
   
He breathed out. He did not belong in this war.  
   
But where else could he go?

______________________________________________________________________________  
   
   
John figured his life was probably over.  
   
He'd survived (and there was a fever-ridden moment where he wondered if it was his punishment for disbelief), but he had lost all of the little he'd ever worked for: bum shoulder and leg meant no more tours, shaky  _fucking_  hands meant no work as a doctor. He wandered, penniless and powerless.  
   
If he'd ever really bought any of the rubbish they said behind church doors, he'd already have run back to the arms of belief and drunk himself full of delusions about  _purposes_  and  _God_  and the  _grand scheme of things_. (He'd have drunk himself to addiction upon notions, because if men like Masters could reach for heaven while having their bowels spill out in the desert, then John could certainly find God in a bottle.) But he didn't, did he, and that was the point.  
   
So he took his cane and he walked, and survived, for some reason. The  _grand design._  
   
John Watson never did end up finding God in the bottle, but he did find something far better in a Bart's laboratory.  
   
______________________________________________________________________________  
   
   
John was obviously losing his mind. There was no such thing as magic, or superpowers, or miracles. This was  _impossible._  Yet, there it was: it was the first time they met (of many times after that), and Sherlock Holmes knew all about his sister. It was -- it was impossible.  
   
Sherlock Holmes knew all about the pink lady, and then the case, and then the murderer, and then his old mate from uni, and then the banker's body on the bed, and then another murderer, and then ancient numbers, and  _everything,_  and then shoes and a wallet and a waterlogged security guard a legend a clue the stars a memory stick split-second flashes of bravery ashes endings affairs tobacco murder end but not bodies in boots of cars boomerangs codes flesh inches centimetres mobiles how to follow John how to follow aeroplanes but not heartbreak but not death dresses carcasses clients stains smells sights words why a hound experiments rabbits beasts the dark fear doubt but not how to apologise the past the signs sugar but not how to be kind corridors and memories projects and monstrosities desperation stop him before consolation evidence of your eyes not the mind but not manners time time home how to rise definitely not manners how to play how to be afraid binary clues hints signs fairy tales trails but not when to smile traces asphalt chalk plants chocolate murder but not how to be friendly dust cameras the future how not to play how to be afraid not how to be kind but to be human to be real percentiles how to permit how to resist how to shoot run hide almost die for the hundredth time how to pick a lock stand his ground prove himself run away figure it out save the world this time but not save but not how to feel not how to care and  _who are you anyway I don't know you, mechanical mind---_  
   
Sherlock is Sherlock, John's best friend, impossible in that he exists, that he's a person and not an idea. Impossible in his powers, in his faults, in himself. Divine intervention alone has made him, saved his life until this point.  
   
In a world made up of absences and questions without answers and dry waste under star skies, Sherlock's the only thing that really seems to matter. He brings everything to life. Things are  _big_  when you run with Sherlock, the world's at stake when you walk at his side. Everything matters: details, blood stains, small moments of humanity, lies and fights, ashes. Death. Life.  
   
Sherlock's standing there, on the roof. When he speaks, when he says what he says, John doesn't understand. He hears words but they're in a different language. They don't make sense, nothing makes sense, what he's hearing can't be right. What Sherlock's saying isn't  _right._  
   
Sherlock's crying. Oh, God, Sherlock's crying.  
   
And then, too soon, too quickly loudly darkly horribly, Sherlock dies.  
   
______________________________________________________________________________  
   
   
The papers lie. He  _knows_  it,  _knows_  it's all bollocks. They'll publish anything, for a story. Sherlock was right: it's what everyone wants to hear. So many pathetic, boring, useless stupid people (he hears the last in Sherlock's voice,  _leave me alone you tit_ ), desperate to believe that they're not being compared against the only people who can make the world right. Want to believe they're not lazy, lacking, empty.  
   
Ha, people will believe anything.  
   
John stands at a graveside,  _that_  graveside and believes in one thing, that everyone else has abandoned. It's the only thing --  _being_  -- he's ever believed in in his life.  
   
Maybe that's worth something. He hasn't set foot in a church in over a decade, but he'd gladly come back here every day if it meant something turned out alright.  
   
He knows it won't; nothing John could ever do would make things turn out alright. He wasn't the one who was impossible because he was brilliant and impossible because he was a person; he wasn't the one who was out there saving lives. He couldn't even save one life. Just one stupid old life that had driven him up the wall with its antics and experiments and oh God he can't cry he doesn't want to cry Sherlock wouldn't want him to cry.  
   
Sentiment.  
   
(Sherlock is never going to get out of his head, is he?)  
   
If Sherlock were here, everything would be alright. Sherlock can solve anything, save anybody, fix anything. That's why he's impossible: he can save anybody, except himself.  
   
Before he can stop himself, John makes a plea.  
   
"No, please, there's just one more thing, one more miracle, Sherlock, for me."  
   
If anyone can make his miracle happen, it'd be Sherlock.  
   
"Just for me? Just stop it -- stop this."  
   
Cold black stone won't weep.  
   
(Words fly up, thoughts remain below.)  
   
______________________________________________________________________________  
   
   
One day in the future, years in the future and a resurrection in between, John Watson will end up in hospital as punishment for believing in Sherlock Holmes and no-one else. Or, for accompanying him down dark alleyways before the police have come.  
   
He'll be under the influence of a remarkable selection of drugs and will, one night, wake delirious, fevered, and screaming in pain. Sherlock will be at his bedside, and will startle.  
   
John will say something incomprehensible about beatification and canonisation and miracles, and about relics in the refrigerator. Will mumble about the miraculously preserved brain of Saint Sherlock.  
   
When John returns to lucidity, when he becomes again his bad excuse for sane, Sherlock will tell him about his delirium with a confused and amused expression on his face. John will look vaguely embarrassed, and Sherlock will be himself:  
   
"You sounded positively Catholic! Horrible. Don't do it again."  
   
John will smile. And then, Sherlock will speak again:  
   
"And besides,  _I'm_  not the one who's set to be a saint." Then, Sherlock will make a face. "Ugh, I think your sentimentality and ridiculous liking for extended metaphor is rubbing off on me. Stop it."  
   
John will smile, and utterly miss the real meaning of Sherlock's statement, the declaration he just made, because John has only ever believed in  _one_  person; he would despair of Sherlock's judgement and reason if he understood what he'd meant. Self-deprecating to a fault, is John Watson.   
   
Maybe, if they dance in tandem and pray each other back to life each time, mortality won't touch them. And, in a way, it never does.


End file.
